The Humble eBook Bundle Expands
Posted on October 16, 2012 Posted by John Scalzi 24 Comments
It’s been a week since the Humble eBook Bundle has come out and in that time over 50,000 bundles have been bought with sale of over $660,000. That’s very awesome, but now the Bundle is becoming even more awesomer because it’s adding five additional books by four of the Internet’s favorite cartoonists: Randall Munroe (xkcd), Zach Weiner (Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal) and Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik (Penny Arcade). All you have to do to get three five extra books is pay more than the average amount for the bundle (currently $12.87).
If you’ve already paid more than the average, as I understand it, these books are unlocked. If you want these books but already paid, you can go back and pay a little more to get yourself above the average price. $12.87 for thirteen books is a pretty sweet deal, y’all. And remember that a chunk of these Humble Bundles go to Child’s Play, SFWA, and the EFF, worthy non-profits and charities all.
Oh, and as a reminder, yes, Old Man’s War is still in the bundle (if you pay more than the average amount). And still a fine read, I say.
I paid $25- hooray!
so what happens if the amount previously paid becomes under the average as the average increases? will the books be relocked?
I’m asking for a friend.
Just got the e-mail, and yep, they’re there. Now even more webcomics to get addicted to…
I bought the bundle at above what was the current average price a couple of nights ago. All you have to do is go back to your dl page and the new additions are available – you don’t have to pay more. totally awesome!
Kilroy, I’m 99% sure that once unlocked, it’s permanently unlocked. In fact, I’m pretty sure if you paid over the average in the beginning, you’ll get the new books even if the new average is more than you paid. For instance, if you paid $11 on Day 1, when the average was $10, you get the new books even though the average is now $12.
I’m not completely certain, but the Humble Bundle has always been pretty chill.
More books. Downloading now
What a fantastic bonus! I love the humble bundle, I love (like?) Mr. Scalzi, and I love when my internet worlds collide!
Whoop, and up goes the pile of to read books…
Well, the digital pile, but the point is the same. Charity and books and on the cheap. It’s the best combo. And their pay more than average system for a bonus is brilliant to keep the donations coming in going up and up… :)
Neat! I’m not sure I’ll ever actually look at these, since a) I’ve already read most or all of the comics in question and b) if I’m on the computer, I can usually just go to the website and read the whole archive. But hey, the high res versions only add up a few hundred MB, and disk space is cheap.
I’ve been monitoring the Humble page, and the numbers started flying this afternoon. I’m guessing that was after some high-traffic site(s) announced the additional books, because for a while the numbers were increasing every second, much the way they did the day John announced them here. Sales are well over $700,000 as I write and still climbing fast.
I mentioned it to a couple of people, at least one of whom also bought a bundle and the other is about to, and they were going to spread the word, so I’m sure there’s been some fine word of mouth too.
I doubt I’ll read the webcomics, except maybe the xkcd collection (I’ll be lucky if I can find the time to read all eight of the original offerings), but I applaud Humble nevertheless for how they’re handling this entire thing. I hope others follow their good example.
Playing with the sliders was interesting, when I bought my bundle. Seeing how my original chosen price was split up encouraged me to increase my amount paid.
Even though I have the hard copies of a few of the books, after hearing John talk about this at Capclave this weekend I decided to join in.
Thank you so much for telling us about this!
Typically you get the bonus items if you’ve purchased the bundle before they drop, even if you paid under the average before. My Humble account is littered with games I didn’t even know I had purchased due to this.
So I was just wondering since one of the charities is SFWA are you required to state you are the president of SFWA when you mention the auction on here? Just curious. Also wouldn’t want anyone to get punished for doing a good deed.
plaing4844:
I’m not legally required to state it, no, but I would be surprised if most people here are not aware of it.
Yes, yes it is a good read. And I know, having purchased the bundle a few days ago and just read the first half of “Old Man’s War” today while proctoring the PSAT, then going home to read the rest. It has been a long time since a book grabbed me that completely. Worth the price if the bundle for that alone.
A fine read indeed! No time to talk – “The Ghost Brigades” is waiting…
Sometime, I will (honest, I will (yeah)) put in some filters that make
http://www.penny-arcade.com/ readable to me because so many
people who have my type of totes normal tastes have recommended
it.
I could of course go all ctrl+a, copy, paste into notepad, but, nahh.
‘Cause that would be less fun than braiding my hair every night
and undoing the braids every morning to prevent tangles.
Probably easiest way would be to replace the site’s background with
dead black, but most readable for me would to be turn the white text
black, turn the background light tan (full white hurts my eyes and is
replaced with near white on everything that uses system colours*).
Most browsers do have an ‘ignore everything that the website says to
do’ setting but that results in all websites looking like what I’d see
in win9x wordpad (which, unlike notepad, can display pictures).
–
But anyway.
Fortuitous that I waited on my credit card cycles to get that bundle.
–
* Britta Is Cute. ;p
A random thought entered my head re: SFWA’s work on behalf of authors in need of health care financing assistance. Is it completely unheard of for an author with a multi-book association with a particular publishing house, say similar to your relationship with TOR, to ask or be offered to purchase health insurance under the publishers group plan?
Haar:
Yes.
Wow! Thank you for the note, I almost missed the Humble Bundle thing and that would have been such a shame.
I picked up the bundle earlier this evening. Average price was up to $13.98 and amount raised was over one million dollars.
Haar:
Har de har har.
((Wow, this is the first time that spell check has told me I’ve Miss
Spelt (sowwy) everything.) First! A personal first!)